Tag: feedback

Rushing for Interventions

Mark Chubb9 Comments

I see students working in groups all the time…  Students working collaboratively in pairs or small groups having rich discussions as they sort shapes by specific properties, students identifying and extending their partner’s visual patterns, students playing games aimed at improving their procedural fluency, students cooperating to make sense of a low-floor/high-ceiling problem…..

When we see students actively engaged in rich mathematics activities, working collaboratively, it provides opportunities for teachers to effectively monitor student learning (notice students’ thinking, provide opportunities for rich questioning, and lead to important feedback and next steps…) and prepare the teacher for the lesson close.  Classrooms that engage in these types of cooperative learning opportunities see students actively engaged in their learning.  And more specifically, we see students who show Agency, Ownership and Identity in their mathematics learning (See TruMath‘s description on page 10).

On the other hand, some classrooms might be pushing for a different vision of what groups can look like in a mathematics classroom.  One where a teachers’ role is to continually diagnose students’ weaknesses, then place students into ability groups based on their deficits, then provide specific learning for each of these groups.  To be honest, I understand the concept of small groups that are formed for this purpose, but I think that many teachers might be rushing for these interventions too quickly.

First, let’s understand that small group interventions have come from the RTI (Response to Intervention) model.  Below is a graphic created by Karen Karp shared in Van de Walle’s Teaching Student Centered Mathematics to help explain RTI:

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Response to Intervention – Teaching Student Centered Mathematics

As you can see, given a high quality mathematics program, 80-90% of students can learn successfully given the same learning experiences as everyone.  However, 5-10% of students (which likely are not always the same students) might struggle with a given topic and might need additional small-group interventions.  And an additional 1-5% might need might need even more specialized interventions at the individual level.

The RTI model assumes that we, as a group, have had several different learning experiences over several days before Tier 2 (or Tier 3) approaches are used.  This sounds much healthier than a model of instruction where students are tested on day one, and placed into fix-up groups based on their deficits, or a classroom where students are placed into homogeneous groupings that persist for extended periods of time.

Principles to Action (NCTM) suggests that what I’m talking about here is actually an equity issue!

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Principles to Action

We know that students who are placed into ability groups for extended periods of time come to have their mathematical identity fixed because of how they were placed.  That is, in an attempt to help our students learn, we might be damaging their self perceptions, and therefore, their long-term educational outcomes.

Tier 1 Instruction

intervention

While I completely agree that we need to be giving attention to students who might be struggling with mathematics, I believe the first thing we need to consider is what Tier 1 instruction looks like that is aimed at making learning accessible to everyone.  Tier 1 instruction can’t simply be direct instruction lessons and whole group learning.  To make learning mathematics more accessible to a wider range of students, we need to include more low-floor/high-ceiling tasks, continue to help our students spatalize the concepts they are learning, as well as have a better understanding of developmental progressions so we are able to effectively monitor student learning so we can both know the experiences our students will need to be successful and how we should be responding to their thinking.  Let’s not underestimate how many of our students suffer from an “experience gap”, not an “achievement gap”!

If you are interested in learning more about what Tier 1 instruction can look like as a way to support a wider range of students, please take a look at one of the following:

Tier 2 Instruction

Tier 2 instruction is important.  It allows us to give additional opportunities for students to learn the things they have been learning over the past few days/weeks in a small group.  Learning in a small group with students who are currently struggling with the content they are learning can give us opportunities to better know our students’ thinking.  However, I believe some might be jumping past Tier 1 instruction (in part or completely) in an attempt to make sure that we are intervening. To be honest, this doesn’t make instructional sense to me! If we care about our content, and care about our students’ relationship with mathematics, this might be the wrong first move.

So, let’s make sure that Tier 2 instruction is:

  • Provided after several learning experiences for our students
  • Flexibly created, and easily changed based on the content being learned at the time
  • Focused on student strengths and areas of need, not just weaknesses
  • Aimed at honoring students’ agency, ownership and identity as mathematicians
  • Temporary!

If you are interested in learning more about what Tier 2 interventions can look like take a look at one of the following:

Instead of seeing mathematics as being learned every day as an approach to intervene, let’s continue to learn more about what Tier 1 instruction can look like!  Or maybe you need to hear it from John Hattie:

Or from Jo Boaler:

Final Thoughts

If you are currently in a school that uses small group instruction in mathematics, I would suggest that you reflect on a few things:

  • How do your students see themselves as mathematicians?  How might the topics of Agency, Authority and Identity relate to small group instruction?
  • What fixed mindset messaging do teachers in your building share “high kids”, “level 2 students”, “she’s one of my low students”….?  What fixed mindset messages might your students be hearing?
  • When in a learning cycle do you employ small groups?  Every day?  After several days of learning a concept?
  • How flexible are your groups?  Are they based on a wholistic leveling of your students, or based specifically on the concept they are learning this week?
  • How much time do these small groups receive?  Is it beyond regular instructional timelines, or do these groups form your Tier 1 instructional time?
  • If Karp/Van de Walle suggests that 80-90% of students can be successful in Tier 1, how does this match what you are seeing?  Is there a need to learn more about how Tier 1 approaches can meet the needs of this many students?
  • What are the rest of your students doing when you are working with a small group?  Is it as mathematically rich as the few you’re working with in front of you?
  • Do you believe that all of your students are capable to learn mathematics and to think mathematically?

I’d love to continue the conversation.  Write a response, or send me a message on Twitter ( @markchubb3 ).

The role of “practice” in mathematics class

Mark Chubb19 Comments

A few weeks ago a NYTimes published an article titled, Make Your Daughter Practice Math. She’ll Thank You Later, an opinion piece that, basically, asserts that girls would benefit from “extra required practice”.  I took a few minutes to look through the comments (which there are over 600) and noticed a polarizing set of personal comments related to what has worked or hasn’t worked for each person, or their own children.  Some sharing how practicing was an essential component for making them/their kids successful at mathematics, and others discussing stories related to frustration, humiliation and the need for children to enjoy and be interested in the subject.

Instead of picking apart the article and sharing the various issues I have with it (like the notion of “extra practice” should be given based on gender), or simply stating my own opinions, I think it would be far more productive to consider why practice might be important and specifically consider some key elements of what might make practice beneficial to more students.

To many, the term “practice” brings about childhood memories of completing pages of repeated random questions, or drills sheets where the same algorithm is used over and over again.  Students who successfully completed the first few questions typically had no issues completing each and every question.  For those who were successful, the belief is that the repetition helped.  For those who were less successful, the belief is that repeating an algorithm that didn’t make sense in the first place wasn’t helpful…  even if they can get an answer, they might still not understand (*Defining 2 opposing definitions of “understanding” here).

“Practice” for both of the views above is often thought of as rote tasks that are devoid of thinking, choices or sense making.  Before I share with you an alternative view of practice, I’d like to first consider how we have tackled “practice” for students who are developing as readers.

If we were to consider reading instruction for a moment, everyone would agree that it would be important to practice reading, however, most of us wouldn’t have thoughts of reading pages of random words on a page, we would likely think about picture books.  Books offer many important factors for young readers.  Pictures might help give clues to difficult words, the storyline offers interest and motivation to continue, and the messages within the book might bring about rich discussions related to the purpose of the book.  This kind of practice is both encourages students to continue reading, and helps them continue to get better at the same time.  However, this is very different from what we view as math “practice”.

In Dan Finkel’s Ted Talk (Five Principles of Extraordinary Math Teaching) he has attempted to help teachers and parents see the equivalent kind of practice for mathematics:

Finkel Quote

Below is a chart explaining the role of practice as it relates to what Dan Finkel calls play:

practice2

Take a look at the “Process” row for a moment.  Here you can see the difference between a repetitive drill kind of practice and the “playful experiences” kind of  practice Dan had called for.  Let’s take a quick example of how practice can be playful.

Students learning to add 2-digit numbers were asked to “practice” their understanding of addition by playing a game called “How Close to 100?”.  The rules:

  • Roll 2 dice to create a 2-digit number (your choice of 41 or 14)
  • Use base-10 materials as appropriate
  • Try to get as close to 100 as possible
  • 4th role you are allowed eliminating any 1 number IF you want

close to 100b

What choice would you make???  Some students might want to keep all 4 roles and use the 14 to get close to 100, while other students might take the 41 and try to eliminate one of the roles to see if they can get closer.

When practice involves active thinking and reasoning, our students get the practice they need and the motivation to sustain learning!  When practice allows students to gain a deeper understanding (in this case the visual of the base-10 materials) or make connections between concepts, our students are doing more than passive rule following – they are engaging in thinking mathematically!

In the end, we need to take greater care in making sure that the experiences we provide our students are aimed at the 5 strands shown below:

strands of mathematical proficency.png
Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics

You might also be interested in thinking about how we might practice Geometrical terms/properties, or spatial reasoning, or exponents, or Bisectors…

So I will leave you with some final thoughts:

  • What does “practice” look like in your classroom?  Does it involve thinking or decisions?  Would it be more engaging for your students to make practice involve more thinking?
  • How does this topic relate to the topic of “engagement”?  Is engagement about making tasks more fun or about making tasks require more thought?  Which view of engagement do you and your students subscribe to?
  • What does practice look like for your students outside of school?  Is there a place for practice at home?
  • Which of the 5 strands (shown above) are regularly present in your “practice” activities?  Are there strands you would like to make sure are embedded more regularly?

I’d love to continue the conversation about “practicing” mathematics.  Leave a comment here or on Twitter @MarkChubb3

Noticing and Wondering: A powerful tool for assessment

Mark Chubb18 Comments

Last week I had the privilege of presenting with Nehlan Binfield at OAME on the topic of assessment in mathematics.  We aimed to position assessment as both a crucial aspect of teaching, yet simplify what it means for us to assess effectively and how we might use our assessments to help our students and class learn.  If interested, here is an abreviated version of our presentation:

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We started off by running through a Notice and Wonder with the group.  Given the image above, we noticed colours, sizes, patterns, symmetries (line symmetry and rotational symmetry), some pieces that looked like “trees” and other pieces that looked like “trees without stumps”…

Followed by us wondering about how many this image would be worth if a white was equal to 1, and what the next term in a pattern would look like if this was part of a growing pattern…

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We didn’t have time, but if you are interested you can see the whole exchange of how the images were originally created in Daniel Finkel’s quick video.

We then continued down the path of noticing and wondering about the image above.  After several minutes, we had come together to really understand the strategy called Notice and Wonder:

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As well as taking a quick look at how we can record our students’ thinking:

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Shared by Jamie Duncan

At this point in our session, we changed our focus from Noticing and Wondering about images of mathematics, to noticing and wondering about our students’ thinking.  To do this, we viewed the following video (click here to view) of a student attempting to find the answer of what eight, nine-cent stamps would be worth:

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The group noticed the student in the video counting, pausing before each new decade, using two hands to “track” her thinking…  The group noticed that she used most of a 10-frame to think about counting by ones into groups of 9.

We then asked the group to consider the wonders about this student or her thinking and use these wonders to think about what they would say or do next.

  • Would you show her a strategy?
  • Would you ask a question to help you understand their thinking better?
  • Would you suggest a tool?
    Would you give her a different question?

It seemed to us, that the most common next steps might not be the ones that were effectively using our assessment of what this child was actually doing.

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Looking through Fosnot’s landscape we noticed that this student was using a “counting by ones” strategy (at least when confronted with 9s), and that skip-counting and repeated addition were the next strategies on her horizon.

While many teachers might want to jump into helping and showing, we invited teachers to first consider whether or not we were paying attention to what she WAS actually doing, as opposed to what she wasn’t doing.

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This led nicely into a conversation about the difference between Assessment and Evaluation.  We noticed that we many talk to us about “assessment”, they actually are thinking about “evaluation”.  Yet, if we are to better understand teaching and learning of mathematics, assessment seems like a far better option!

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So, if we want to get better at listening interpretively, then we need to be noticing more:

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Yet still… it is far too common for schools to use evaluative comments.  The phrases below do not sit right with me… and together we need to find ways to change the current narrative in our schools!!!

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Evaluation practices, ranking kids, benchmarking tests… all seem to be aimed at perpetuating the narrative that some kids can’t do math… and distracts us from understanding our students’ current thinking.

So, we aimed our presentation at seeing other possibilities:

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To continue the presentation, we shared a few other videos of student in the processs of thinking (click here to view the video).  We paused the video directly after this student said “30ish” and asked the group again to notice and wonder… followed by thinking about what we would say/do next. b15

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Followed by another quick video (click here to view).  We watched the video up until she says “so it’s like 14…”.  Again, we noticed and wondered about this students’ thinking… and asked the group what they would say or do next.

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After watching the whole video, we discussed the kinds of questions we ask students:

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If we are truly aimed at “assessment”, which basically is the process of understanding our students’ thinking, then we need to be aware of the kinds of questions we ask, and our purpose for asking those questions!  (For more about this see link).

We finished our presentation off with a framework that is helpful for us to use when thinking about how our assessment data can move our class forward:

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We shared a selection of student work and asked the group to think about what they noticed… what they wonderered… then what they would do next.

For more about how the 5 Practices can be helpful to drive your instruction, see here.

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So, let’s remember what is really meant by “assessing” our students…

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…and be aware that this might be challenging for us…

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…but in the end, if we continue to listen to our students’ thinking, ask questions that will help us understand their thoughts, continue to press our students’ thinking, and bring the learning together in ways where our students are learning WITH and FROM each other, then we will be taking “a giant step toward becoming a master teacher”!

So I’ll leave you with some final thoughts:

  • What do comments sound like in your school(s)?  Are they asset based (examples of what your students ARE doing) or deficit based (“they can’t multiply”… “my low kids don’t get it…”)?
  • What do you do if you are interested in getting better at improving your assessment practices like we’ve discussed here, but your district is asking for data on spreadsheets that are designed to rank kids evaluatively?
  • What do we need to do to change the conversation from “level 2 kids” (evaluative statements that negatively impact our students) to conversations about what our students CAN do and ARE currently doing?
  •  What math knowledge is needed for us to be able to notice mathematicially important milestones in our students?  Can trajectories or landscapes or continua help us know what to notice better?

I’d love to continue the conversation about assessment in mathematics.  Leave a comment here or on Twitter @MarkChubb3 @MrBinfield

If you are interested in reading more on similar topics, might I suggest:

Or take a look at the whole slide show here

 

Co-Teaching in Math Class

Mark Chubb13 Comments

For the past few years I have had the privilege of being an instructional coach working with amazing teachers in amazing schools.  It is hard to explain just how much I’ve learned from all of the experiences I’ve had throughout this time.  The position, while still relatively new, has evolved quite a bit into what it is today, but one thing that has remained a focus is the importance of Co-Planning, Co-Teaching and Co-Debriefing.  This is because at the heart of coaching is the belief that teachers are the most important resource we have – far more important than programs or classroom materials – and that developing and empowering teachers is what is best for students.

While the roles of Co-Planning, Co-Teaching and Co-Debriefing are essential parts of coaching, I’m not sure that everyone would agree on what they actually look like in practice?

Take for example co-teaching, what does it mean to co-teach?  Melynee Naegele, Andrew Gael and Tina Cardone shared the following graphic at this year’s Twitter Math Camp to explain what co-teaching might look like:
co-teaching models

Above you can see 6 different models described as Co-teaching.  While I completely understand that these 6 models might be common practices in schools when 2 teachers are in the same room, and while I am not speaking out against any of these models, I’m not sure I agree that all of these models are really co-teaching.  Think about it, which of these models would help teachers learn from and with each other?  Which of these promote students learning from 2 teachers who are working together?  Which of these models promotes teachers separating duties / responsibilities in a more isolated approach?

I will admit that after looking at the graphic (without being part of the learning from #TMC17) I was confused.  So, I went on Twitter to ask the experts (Melynee Naegele, Andrew Gael, Tina Cardone and others who were present at the sessions) to find out more about how co-teaching was viewed.  I was interested to find out from reading through their slideshows and from Mary Dooms that often, the “co-teacher” is a Special Education teacher and not an Instructional or Math Coach.

coteaching1

So, I thought it might be worth picking apart a few different roles to think more about what our practices look like in our schools.

Co-Teaching as a Special Education Teacher

Special Education teachers and Interventionists do really important work in our schools.  They have the potential to be a voice for those who are often not advocating for their own education and can offer many great strategies for both classroom teachers and students to help improve educational experiences.  When given the opportunity to co-teach with a classroom teacher though, I would be curious as to which models typically exist?

co-teaching models

In my experience, the easiest to prescribe models would be model 3 or 4, parallel teaching / alternative teaching.  Working with a large class of mixed-ability students isn’t easy, so many classroom teachers are quite happy to hear that a special education teacher or interventionist is willing to take half or some of the students and do something different for them.  I wonder though, is this practice promoting exclusion, segregation, integration or inclusion?

 

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See Tim Villegas’ article

While I understand that there are times when students might need to be brought together in a small group for specific help, I think we might be missing some really important learning opportunities.

At the heart of the problem is how difficult it is for classroom teachers to differentiate instruction in ways that allow our students to all be successful without sending fixed mindset messages via ability grouping.  Special Education teachers and interventionists have the ability, however, to have powerful conversations with classroom teachers to help create or modify lessons so they are more open and allow access for all of our students!  Co-teaching models 3 and 4 don’t allow us to have conversations that will help us learn better how to help those who are currently struggling with their mathematics.  Instead, those models ask for someone else to fix whatever problems might be existing.  The beliefs implied with these models are that the students need fixing, we don’t need to change!  Rushing for intervention doesn’t help us consider what ways we can support classroom teachers get better at educating those who have been marginalized.

intervention3

The more time Special Education teachers and interventionists can spend in classrooms talking to classroom teachers, being part of the learning together and helping plan open tasks/problems that will support a wider group of students… the better the educational experiences will be for ALL of our students!  This raises the expectations of our students, while allowing US as teachers to co-learn together.  I think Special Education teachers and Interventionists need to spend more time doing models 1, 5 or 6, then, when appropriate, use other models on an as-needed basis.

 

Co-Teaching as a Coach

The role of instructional coaches or math coaches is quite different from that of a Special Education teacher or Interventionist though.  While Special Education teachers and Interventionists focus their thoughts on what is best for specific students who might be struggling in class, Coaches’ are concerned more with content, pedagogy, the beliefs we have about what is important, and the million decisions we make in-the-moment while teaching.  Coaching is a very personal role.  Together, a coach and a classroom teacher make their decision making explicit and together they learn and grow as professionals.  The role of coaches is to help the teachers you work with slow down their thinking processes… and this requires the ability to really listen (something I am continually trying to get better at).

Coaching involves a lot of time co-planning, co-teaching and co-debriefing.  However, in order for co-teaching to be effective, as much as possible, the coach and the classroom teacher need to be together!  Being present in the same place allows opportunities for both professionals to discuss important in-the-moment decisions and notice things the other might not have noticed.  It allows opportunities for reflection after a lesson because you have both experienced the same lesson.  Models 1, 5 and 6 seem to be the only models that would make sense for a coach.  Otherwise, how could a coach possibly coach?

If you haven’t seen how powerful it can be for teachers to learn together, I strongly suggest that you take a look at The Teaching Channel’s video showing Teacher Time Outs here.

To me, the more we as educators can talk about our decisions, the more we can learn together, the more we can try things out together……. the better we will get at our job!  We can’t do this (at least not well) if co-teaching happens in different places and/or with different students!

As always, I want to leave you with a few reflective questions:

  • How would you define co-teaching?  What characteristics do you think are needed in order to differentiate it from teaching?
  • If you don’t have someone to co-teach with, how can you make it a priority?  How can your administrator help create conditions that will allow you to have the rich conversations needed for us to learn and grow?
  • If you are a Special Education teacher or an interventionist, how receptive are classroom teachers to discuss the needs of those that are struggling with math?  Are conversations about what we need to do differently for a small group, or are conversations about what we can do better for all students?
  • If you are a math coach or an instructional coach, what are the expectations from a classroom teacher for you?  How can you build a relationship where the two of you feel comfortable to learn and try things together?  What do conversations sound like after co-teaching?
  • Are specific models of co-teaching being suggested to you by others?  By whom?  Do you have the opportunity to have a voice to try something you see as being valuable?
  • School boards and districts often aim their sights at short-term goals like standardized testing so many programs are put into place to give specific students extra assistance.  But does your school have long-term goals too?  At the end of the year, has co-teaching helped the classroom teacher better understand how to meet the various needs of students in a mixed ability classroom?

For more on this topic I encourage you to read Unintended Messages  or How Our District Improved

I’d love to continue the conversation.  Write a response, or send me a message on Twitter ( @markchubb3 ).

 

 

Differentiated Instruction: comparing 2 subjects

Mark Chubb16 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to meet the various needs of students in our classrooms lately.  If we think about it, we are REALLY good at differentiated instruction in subjects like writing, yet, we struggle to do differentiated instruction well in subjects like math.  Why is this???

In writing class, everyone seems to have an entry point.  The teacher puts a prompt up on the board and everyone writes.  Because the prompt is open, every student has something to write about, yet the writing of every student looks completely different. That is, the product, the process and/or the content differs for each student to some degree.

Teachers who are comfortable teaching students how to write know that they start with having students write something, then they provide feedback or other opportunities for them to improve upon.  From noticing what students do in their writing, teachers can either ask students to fix or improve upon pieces of their work, or they can ask the class to work on specific skills, or ask students to write something new the next day because of what they have learned.  Either way the teacher uses what they noticed from the writing sample and asks students to use what they learned and improve upon it!

In Math class, however, many teachers don’t take the same approach to learning.  Some tell every student exactly what to do, how to do it, and share exactly what the finished product should look like.  OR… in the name of differentiated instruction, some teachers split their class into different groups, those that are excelling, those that are on track, and those that need remediation.  To them, differentiated instruction is about ability grouping – giving everyone different things.  The two teachers’ thinking above are very different aren’t they!

Imagine these practices in writing class again.  Teacher 1 (everyone does the exact same thing, the exact same way) would show students how to write a journal (let’s say), explain about the topic sentence, state the number of sentences needed per paragraph, walk every student through every step.  The end products Teacher 1 would get, would be lifeless replications of the teacher’s thinking!  While this might build some competence, it would not be supporting young creative writers.

Teacher 2 (giving different things to different groups) on the other hand would split the class into 3 or 4 groups and give everyone a different prompt.  “Some of you aren’t ready for this journal writing topic!!!”  Students in the high group would be allowed to be creative… students in the middle group wouldn’t be expected to be creative, but would have to do most of what is expected… and those in the “fix-up” group would be told exactly what to do and how to do it.  While this strategy might seem like targeted instruction, sadly those who might need the most help would be missing out on many of the important pieces of developing writers – including allowing them to be engaged and interested in the creative processes.

Teacher 1 might be helpful for some in the class because they are telling specific things that might be helpful for some.

Teacher 2 might be helpful for some of the students in the class too… especially those that might feel like they are the top group.

But something tells me, that neither are allowing their students to reach their potential!!!

Think again to the writing teacher I described at the beginning.  They weren’t overly prescriptive at first, but became more focused after they knew more about their students.  They provided EVERYONE opportunity to be creative and do the SAME task!

In math, the most effective strategy for differentiating instruction, in my opinion, is using open problems.  When a task is open, it allows all students to access the material, and allows all students to share what they currently understand.  However, this isn’t enough.  We then need to have some students share their thinking in a lesson close (this can include the timely and descriptive feedback everyone in the group needs).  Building the knowledge together is how we learn.  This also means that future problems / tasks should be built on what was just learned.

ambuigity

We know that to differentiate instruction is to allow for differences in the products, content and/or processes of learning… However, I think what might differ between teacher’s ability to use differentiated instruction strategies is if they are Teacher-Centered… or Student-Centered!

Differentiated Instruction.jpg

When we are teacher-centered we believe that it is our job to tell which students should be working on which things or aim to control which strategies each student will be learning.  However, I’m not convinced that we would ever be able to accurately know which strategies students are ready for (and therefore which ones we wouldn’t want them to hear), nor am I convinced that giving students different things regularly is healthy for our students.

Determining how to place students in groups is an important decision.  Avoid continually grouping by ability.  This kind of grouping, although well-intentioned, perpetuates low levels of learning and actually increases the gap between more and less dependent students.  Instead, consider using flexible grouping in which the size and makeup of small groups vary in a purposeful and strategic manner.  When coupled with the use of differentiation strategies, flexible grouping gives all students the chance to work successfully in groups. Van de Walle – Teaching Student Centered Mathematics

If we were to have students work on a problem in pairs, we need to be aware that grouping by ability as a regular practice can actually lead students to develop fixed mindsets – that is they start to recognize who is and who isn’t a math student.

Obviously there are times when some students need remediation, however, I think we are too quick to jump to remediation of skills instead of attempting to find ways to allow students to make sense of things in their own way followed by bringing the learning / thinking together to learn WITH and FROM each other.

To make these changes, however, I think we need to spend more time thinking about what a good problem or rich task should look like!  Maybe something for a future post?

As always, I want to leave you with a few reflective questions:

  • I chose to compare what differentiated instruction looks like in mathematics to what it looks like in writing class.  However, I often hear more comparisons between reading and mathematics.  Do you see learning mathematics as an expressive subject like writing or a receptive subject like reading?
  • Where do you find tasks / problems that offer all of your students both access and challenge (just like a good writing prompt)?  How do these offer opportunities for your students to vary their process, product and/or content?
  • Once we provide open problems for our students, how do you leverage the reasoning and representations from some in the room to help others learn and grow?
  • Math is very different than Literacy.  Reading and writing, for the most part, are skills, while mathematics is content heavy.  So how do you balance the need to continually learn new things with the need to continually make connections and build on previous understanding?
  • What barriers are there to viewing differentiated instruction like this?  How can we help as an online community?

For more on this topic I encourage you to read How do we meet the needs of so many unique students in a mixed-ability classroom?  or take a look at our Ontario Ministry’s vision for Differentiated Instruction in math: Differentiating Mathematics Instruction

I’d love to continue the conversation.  Write a response, or send me a message on Twitter ( @markchubb3 ).

How do you give feedback?

Mark Chubb13 Comments

There seems to be a lot of research telling us how important feedback is to student performance, however, there’s little discussion about how we give this feedback and what the feedback actually looks like in mathematics. To start with, here are a few important points research says about feedback:

  • The timing of feedback is really important
  • The recipient of the feedback needs to do more work than the person giving the feedback
  • Students need opportunities to do something with the feedback
  • Feedback is not the same thing as giving advice

I will talk about each of these toward the end of this post.  First, I want to explain a piece about feedback that isn’t mentioned enough…  Providing students with feedback positions us and our students as learners.  Think about it for a second, when we “mark” things our attention starts with what students get right, but our attention moves quickly to trying to spot errors. Basically, when marking, we are looking for deficits. On the other hand, when we are giving feedback, we instead look for our students’ actual thinking.  We notice things as almost right, we notice misconceptions or overgeneralization…then think about how to help our students move forward.  When giving feedback, we are looking for our students strengths and readiness.  Asset thinking is FAR more productive, FAR more healthy, FAR more meaningful than grades!

Feedback Doesn’t Just Happen at the End!

Let’s take an example of a lesson involving creating, identifying, and extending linear growing patterns.  This is the 4th day in a series of lessons from a wonderful resource called From Patterns to Algebra.  Today, the students here were asked to create their own design that follows the pattern given to them on their card.

IMG_1395
Their pattern card read: Output number = Input number x3+2
IMG_1350
Their pattern card read:  Output number = Input number x7
IMG_1347
Their pattern card read:  Output number = Input number x4

 

IMG_1175
Their pattern card read:  Output number = Input number x3+1
IMG_1355
Their pattern card read:  Output number = Input number x8+2
IMG_1361
Their pattern card read: Output number = Input number x5+2

Once students made their designs, they were instructed to place their card upside down on their desk, and to circulate around the room quietly looking at others’ patterns.  Once they believed they knew the “pattern rule” they were allowed to check to see if they were correct by flipping over the card.

After several minutes of quiet thinking, and rotating around the room, the teacher stopped everyone and led the class in a lesson close that involved rich discussions about specific samples around the room.  Here is a brief explanation of this close:

Teacher:  Everyone think of a pattern that was really easy to tell what the pattern rule was.  Everyone point to one.  (Class walks over to the last picture above – picture 6).  What makes this pattern easy for others to recognize the pattern rule?  (Students respond and engage in dialogue about the shapes, colours, orientation, groupings…).

Teacher:  Can anyone tell the class what the 10th position would look like?  Turn to your partner and describe what you would see.  (Students share with neighbor, then with the class)

Teacher:  Think of one of the patterns around the room that might have been more difficult for you to figure out.  Point to one you want to talk about with the class.  (Students point to many different ones around the room.  The class visits several and engages in discussions about each.  Students notice some patterns are harder to count… some patterns follow the right number of tiles – but don’t follow a geometric pattern, some patterns don’t reflect the pattern listed on the card.  Each of these noticings are given time to discuss, in an environment that is about learning… not producing.  Everyone understands that mistakes are part of the learning process here and are eager to take their new knowledge and apply it.

The teacher then asks students to go back to their desks and gives each student a new card.  The instructions are similar, except, now she asks students to make it in a way that will help others recognize the patterns easily.

The process of creating, walking around the room silently, then discussing happens a second time.

To end the class, the teacher hands out an exit card asking students to articulate why some patterns are easier than others to recognize.  Examples were expected from students.

At the beginning of this post I shared 4 points from research about feedback.  I want to briefly talk about each:

The timing of feedback is really important

Feedback is best when it happens during the learning.  While I can see when it would be appropriate for us to collect items and write feedback for students, having the feedback happen in-the-moment is ideal!   Dan Meyer reminds us that instant feedback isn’t ideal.  Students need enough time to think about what they did right/wrong… what needs to be corrected.  On the other hand, having students submit items, then us giving them back a week later isn’t ideal either!  Having this time to think and receive feedback DURING the learning experience is ideal.  In the example above, feedback happened several times:

  1. As students walked around looking at patterns.  After they thought they knew the pattern, they peeked at the card.
  2. As students discuss several samples they are given time to give each other feedback about which patterns make sense… which ones visually represented the numeric value… which patterns could help us predict future visuals/values
  3. Afterward once the teacher collected the exit cards.

The recipient of the feedback needs to do more work than the person giving the feedback

Often we as teachers spend too much time writing detailed notes offering pieces of wisdom.  While this is often helpful, it isn’t a feasible thing to do on a daily basis. In fact, us doing all of the thinking doesn’t equate to students improving!  In the example above, students were expected to notice patterns that made sense to them, they engaged in conversations about the patterns.  Each student had to recognize how to make their pattern better because of the conversations.  The work of the feedback belonged, for the most part, within each student.

Students need opportunities to do something with the feedback

Once students receive feedback, they need to use that feedback to continue to improve.  In the above example, the students had an opportunity to create new patterns after the discussions.  After viewing the 2nd creations and seeing the exit cards, verbal or written feedback could be given to those that would benefit from it.

Feedback is not the same thing as giving advice

This last piece is an interesting one.  Feedback, by definition, is about seeing how well you have come to achieving your goal.  It is about what you did, not about what you need to do next.  “I noticed that you have switched the multiplicative and additive pieces in each of your patterns” is feedback.  “I am not sure what the next position would look like because I don’t see a pattern here” is feedback.  “The additive parts need to remain constant in each position” is not feedback… it is advice (or feedforward).

In the example above, the discussions allowed for ample time for feedback to happen.  If students were still struggling, it is appropriate to give direct advice.  But I’m not sure students would have understood any advice, or retained WHY they needed to take advice if we offered it too soon.

So I leave you with some final questions for you:

  • When do your students receive feedback?  How often?
  • Who gives your students their feedback?
  • Is it written?  Or verbal?
  • Which of these do you see as the most practical?  Meaningful for your students?  Productive?
  • How do you make time for feedback?
  • Who is doing the majority of the work… the person giving or the person receiving the feedback?
  • Do your students engage in tasks that allow for multiple opportunities for feedback to happen naturally?

PS.   Did you notice which of the students’ examples above had made an error.  What feedback would you give?  How would they receive this feedback?

 

 

 

Who makes the biggest impact?

Mark Chubb5 Comments

A few years ago I had the opportunity to listen to Damian Cooper (expert on assessment and evaluation here in Ontario). He shared with us an analogy talking to us about the Olympic athletes that had just competed in Sochi.  He asked us to think specifically about the Olympic Ice Skaters…

He asked us, who we thought made the biggest difference in the skaters’ careers:  The scoring judges or their coaches?

Think about this for a second…  An ice skater trying to become the best at their sport has many influences on their life…  But who makes the biggest difference?  The scoring judges along the way, or their coaches?  Or is it a mix of both???

Damian told us something like this:

The scoring judge tells the skater how well they did… However, the skater already knows if they did well or not.  The scoring judge just CONFIRMS if they did well or not.  In fact, many skaters might be turned off of skating because of low scores!  The scoring judge is about COMPETITION.  Being accurate about the right score is their goal.

On the other hand, the coach’s role is only to help the skater improve. They watch, give feedback, ask them to repeat necessary steps… The coach knows exactly what you are good at, and where you need help. They know what to say when you do well, and how to get you to pick yourself up. Their goal is for you to become the very best you can be!  They want you to succeed!

In the everyday busyness of teaching, I think we often confuse the terms “assessment” with “evaluation”   Evaluating is about marking, levelling, grading… While the word assessment comes from the Latin “Assidere” which means “to sit beside”.  Assessment is kind of like learning about our students’ thinking processes, seeing how deeply they understand something…   These two things, while related, are very different processes!

assidere

I have shared this analogy with a number of teachers.   While most agree with the premise, many of us recognize that our job requires us to be the scoring judges… and while I understand the reality of our roles and responsibilities as teachers, I believe that if we want to make a difference, we need to be focusing on the right things.  Take a look at Marian Small’s explanation of this below.  I wonder if the focus in our schools is on the “big” stuff, or the “little” stuff?  Take a look:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/136761933?color=a185ac&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

Marian Small – It’s About Learning from LearnTeachLead on Vimeo.

Thinking again to Damian’s analogy of the ice skaters, I can’t help but think about one issue that wasn’t discussed.  We talked about what made the best skaters, even better, but I often spend much of my thoughts with those who struggle.  Most of our classrooms have a mix of students who are motivated to do well, and those who either don’t believe they can be successful, or don’t care if they are achieving.

If we focus our attention on scoring, rating, judging… basically providing tasks and then marking them… I believe we will likely be sending our struggling students messages that math isn’t for them.  On the other hand, if we focus on providing experiences where our students can learn, and we can observe them as they learn, then use our assessments to provide feedback or know which experiences we need to do next, we will send messages to our students that we will all improve.

Hopefully this sounds a lot like the Growth Mindset messages you have been hearing about!

Take a quick look at the video above where Jo Boaler shows us the results of a study comparing marks vs feedback vs marks & feedback.

So, how do you provide your students with the feedback they need to learn and grow?

How do you provide opportunities for your students to try things, to explore, make sense of things in an environment that is about learning, not performing?

What does it mean for you to provide feedback?  Is it only written?

How do you use these learning opportunities to provide feedback on your own teaching?

As  always, I try to ask a few questions to help us reflect on our own beliefs.  Hopefully we can continue the conversation here or on Twitter.